The European Commission’s Initial Assessment of the Liability Frameworks for Emerging Digital Technologies

This chapter focuses on the most important implications for and potential gaps in the liability frameworks for artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics. The European Commission’s 2018 Staff Working Document on liability for emerging digital technologies attempted to identify the legal challenges that such technologies can pose to the existing EU and Member States legislation due to their novel technical and operational characteristics. According to the Commission’s initial (2018) assessment on liability for emerging digital technologies, the EU’s existing product liability legislation contains a number of gaps that need to be addressed. If the safety risks materialise, the specific characteristics of those technologies could make it difficult to trace back potentially problematic decisions made with the involvement of AI systems. This in turn may make it extremely difficult for persons having suffered harm to obtain compensation under the current EU and national liability legislation. Therefore, in the context of emerging digital technologies, it is imperative to offer an adequate level of legal certainty for businesses, to ensure that appropriate redress mechanisms for consumers are in place, and to avoid any potential disparities and fragmentation in the Digital Single Market.